My Ants are up and running #bitcoin

So, a few weeks ago I decided to get a couple of devices to experience Bitcoin mining and learn all about it. I decided on the Antminer S3 boxes which seem really power-efficient and powerful enough to mine at a decent rate. Here’s what they look like:

They’re powered by a pair of 500W Corsair PSUs and are currently mining at around 450GH/s each, which I thought was pretty cool. Setting them up was relatively simple, all I needed was a couple of paperclips. There’s a full run-down on how to do it here: Antminer S3 Setup guide.

Setting up these machines has come quite a way since they came on the market, and this took around 5 minutes in total. I guess there’s a certain commoditization happening as there’s more and more demand to enter the business easily. I can’t help but thinking that the real winners here are the people selling kit. After all, it’s no great secret that in a gold rush the people selling shovels are usually the best off …